Welcome to Pixls (and RawTherapee) @Arn!
I’m surprised that the default and neutral profiles look similar given that the tone curve in the screenshot is so extreme (neutral does not apply a tone curve). How exactly does the photo look with neutral? In any case, the issue might be fixed in 5.9. Until the MacOS version arrives, you can try the release candidate at RawTherapee 5.9-rc1 ready for testing
@Ulrich_Windl 5.9 IS a fixed 5.8. Think of it as the 9th update to RawTherapee 5.